Too fast?
 

I dropped off my Yam forks at JWR suspension and bumped into a friend I don't see often. He was telling me he just sold his Ducati V4 (Panigale?) because it was too fast. At 100mph it was doing 7k rpm but he said it would rev to over 15k (so I assume he had the "R") and was capable of 200mph.

I should point out that he also has an Aprilia RSV4 (I think that's the model - I remember he complained it only came in matt grey - so he had it repainted), so he is used to quick bikes.

Are bikes getting too powerful and too quick?

The Ducati V4R has a claimed output of 231hp (I wonder what tyre life is like). The Aprilia RSV4 "only" has 201hp

Re: Too fast?
 

Caveat: I've never ridden a bike with more than 120bhp. But yes, I personally think the high-end bikes of today have way too much power for anything other than trackdays.

Of course, you don't have to ride them at WFO all the time, but to me that rather defeats the object.

On a slight tangent, it constantly amuses me that SVs are regarded as 'beginner's bikes.' Back in the mid-70s, the fastest, baddest bike you could buy was a Kawasaki Z1, which put out around 70bhp at the back wheel, could hit 130mph and did the quarter mile in around 12.5 seconds - all of which is matched by a Gen 2 or Gen 3 SV. But no-one ever called a Z1 a 'beginner's bike'.

Re: Too fast?
 

for a large majority of people yes. its not the bike its the rider. i have seen people on large capacity sport bikes doing 30mph round corners i will take at 60. i always get the feeling that if they were on smaller capacity bikes than they would go faster but i guess its willy waving and bragging rites more than anything.

there has been very few people that have overtaken me but there has been a loooot of people held me up on their big fancy bikes when i'm on a whats classed as a learner and girls bike.

Re: Too fast?
 

I had a Triumph 955i Daytona a few years ago that I ended up selling because it was too fast for me.
Whenever I took it out I used to thrash it through the gears etc. until one day, racing an M3 BMW,I thought to myself "what am I doing?, I'm going to kill myself at this rate", so sold the bike & bought a tourer instead. I've steadily started to ride slower due to age & self preservation.
Most sports bikes today are built for racing "Win on Sunday, sales on Monday". Look at Ducati, back in the day classed as an unreliable Italian bike, but now, one of the largest selling bike manufacturers
People like to have bragging rights "look at my £30,000 superbike, it does 200 mph" that has massive chicken strips because they can't ride them properly.

Re: Too fast?
 

Sounds about right. For those of us quite happy with 50-odd horses under them (Hugh has 54, the new bike I'm considering has 48) the speedier machines are terrifying. I was given the keys to a brand new 765 Street Triple when Hugh was in for his first service and it seemed like just coughing on the throttle had me shooting forward into the next county! I parked up for a bacon buttie and took my time eating it so I could just head gingerly back and hand the keys over again.